Soufriere Hills on Montserrat in an undated image from the Royal Navy.

Just wanted to pass along this bit of news: the current eruptions at Soufriere Hills on Montserrat are prompting cancellations of over 40 flights today from Puerto Rico. This is due to the ash plumes from the current dome eruptions – the NASA Earth Observatory posted images of the recent activity showing the large, grey plume drifting to the west. What is impressive is that Puerto Rico is over 250 miles / 400 km to the west of Montserrat, so this ash must be significant enough to prompt these flight cancellations. The ash appears to be causing poor visibility at 10,000 feet / 3 km – along with being a threat to cause engine failure. Officials from Puerto Rico say regular flights will likely return tomorrow.

I’ve got a general question there is in Bolivia at 67 degrees west and 20 degrees south a huge salt flat at 12,000 feet. It is something like 67 by 87 miles in size. Now there seem to be a number of volcanoes in the area. Could this be an ancient caldera that got covered with salt? Have there been any geological examinations that can prove/disprove this notion? I am just considering this because 12,000 feet is a rather high altitude to have such a flat expanse – or am I wrong? Are there many or any other high non-volcanic plateaus like this around the world?

I recently bought this suped-up gaming laptop, with over 2 GB of memory and it is so AWESOME! I can play Mass Effect 2, the new Need For Speed, and Bloons TD 3 and with no lagg at all. I purchased mine from HP, all for like $500 bucks all in… pretty good deal in my opinion.

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